The Atlantic

“You may perhaps need to consider an uncomfortable question: Is it possible that you are the combative, argumentative person in the situation?” writes Arthur C. Brooks:

The decline of cursive instruction in schools has left students unable to parse archival documents written in script, Drew Gilpin Faust writes. Can you study history if you can’t read cursive? (From 2022)

“My father’s cognitive decline had an audience of almost everyone we knew, many of whom didn’t know about his diagnosis,” Angie Mazakis writes. But the more he reached out to people—purposefully or not—the more she and her sister realized that his reality didn’t need to be concealed: https://lnkd.in/eQgqc4gt (From 2023) ⁠ In the last six months of his life, dementia made Mazakis’s father deeply anxious and afraid to be alone. “My father’s social-media use reflected his constant state of agitation. He’d ping me endlessly on Facebook … But his frenetic posting also seemed to soothe him in real life; it gave him an outlet for his nervous energy, and a sense of being linked to other people. Still, I felt anxious about his more public online activity,” she writes. “It would have taken too much effort to alert every one of his friends of his situation. So we just let him continue to use social media, assuming that people would eventually ignore his posts.”⁠ ⁠ But that’s not what happened. Instead, they were mostly just concerned, and loving, and glad to still be connected to him. Once, about a month before her dad died, he video-called Mazakis through Facebook—something he had never done before. “‘I know you didn’t mean to, but I’m glad you called,’ I said. ‘Did you know you added six other people to this call?’ He didn’t. ‘Well,’ I told him, ‘we might have some visitors joining.’ One friend joined from North Carolina and talked with him for a few minutes. Before he hung up, he shared how much my dad meant to him. Then a friend who was driving through the mountains of Lebanon joined. ‘I love this man. I love your dad,’ he said. ‘He’s like a father to me.’”⁠ ⁠ “Dementia patients are so often hidden, whether in facilities away from their communities or more subtly—by people like me, keeping private the thoughts and behaviors of our loved ones that make us uncomfortable. That impulse, I believe, is often well intentioned; we just don’t know what people will think … But watching my dad’s friends react to his online activity, I realized I should have had a little more faith in their care for him, and the persistence of that care even when he didn’t seem like himself anymore.”⁠ Read more: https://lnkd.in/eQgqc4gt ⁠ 🎨: Jon Han for The Atlantic

How worried should you be about chemicals in nonstick pans, cutting boards, and slow cookers? Zoë Schlanger explains what science can—and can't—tell us.

Everyone loves to hate the New York Times game Connections. Its editor, Wyna Liu, speaks with Elaine Godfrey about her puzzlemaking process and the particular ire Connections inspires:

“Martha” raises interesting questions about motherhood, family life, and domestic labor—in part because of Martha Stewart’s apparent doubts about the value of all three, Hannah Giorgis writes:

The Atlantic has chosen 65 gift ideas for bringing more merriment, adventure, and wonder to the ones you love:

“Artificial intelligence could significantly diminish humanity … by sapping the ability of human beings to do human things,” Tyler Austin Harper writes. https://lnkd.in/gAja_8BZ Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd introduced the idea of an AI dating concierge, which could not only give you dating advice, but even go on dates for you with other of its AI peers and then recommend a small number of people with whom you’d match. “This is more than a darkly whimsical peek into a dystopian future of online dating,” Harper writes. Companies such as Spotify and HelloFresh are doing something similar: “How to date. How to cook a meal. How to appreciate new music … The machines have arrived to teach us how to be human even as they strip us of our humanity.” “We’re seeing a general trend of selling AI as ‘empowering,’ a way to extend your ability to do something, whether that’s writing, making investments, or dating,” Leif Weatherby, an expert on the history of AI development, explained to Harper. “But what really happens is that we become so reliant on algorithmic decisions that we lose oversight over our own thought processes and even social relationships.” But, Harper notes, it’s important to acknowledge where AI can be useful. “We can’t take a stand against the infiltration of algorithms into the human estate if we don’t have a well-developed sense of which activities make humans human, and which activities—like sweeping the floor or detecting pancreatic cancer—can be outsourced to nonhuman surrogates without diminishing our agency.” “Silicon Valley leaders have helped make a world in which people feel that everyday social interactions, whether dating or making simple phone calls, require expert advice and algorithmic assistance. AI threatens to turbocharge this process,” Harper continues at the link in our bio. “Even if your personalized dating concierge is not here yet, the sales pitch for them has already arrived, and that sales pitch is almost as dangerous as the technology itself: AI will teach you how to be a human.” https://lnkd.in/gAja_8BZ (From May) 🎨: Nick Little for The Atlantic

One in every four online purchases will be returned—and during the holidays, that number is even higher, Amanda Mull reported in 2023. Mull went inside a facility that sorts through all the stuff American shoppers don’t want, to see what really happens to the things we return.

For many people, #remotework isn’t just about better work-life balance; it’s about allowing more time for the uncompensated caregiving work that millions provide for America’s young, sick, elderly, and disabled, Stephanie H. Murray writes: https://lnkd.in/giWSQAxB ⁠ Unpaid caregivers are the backbone of the American workforce, even if their labor isn’t included in any of the primary ways in which we measure the health of the American economy. Remote #work allows caregivers the flexibility to be more efficient in their caregiving tasks, while also maintaining additional jobs. “Compelling evidence suggests that remote work is allowing caregivers to remain employed; it may be why labor-force participation for women with kids under 5 has leapfrogged its pre-pandemic rate. It may also allow workers to do more caregiving,” Murray continues. ⁠ Murray spoke with caregivers like Sarah White, who works full-time for a pharmaceutical company. She says the absence of a commute makes managing her son’s complex medical needs far easier. She can drive him to midday appointments, or just get the laundry done while working. Employers may not like to hear that employees are doing chores on the job, but working in an office doesn’t eliminate downtime—it just restricts how you can use it. Without the option of loading the dishwasher in between meetings, you might chat with a co-worker or check social media. ⁠ ⁠ “Of course, a rethinking of #productivity to include care shouldn’t end with embracing remote work. Many other policies, such as paid family and medical leave, paid sick leave, child allowances or cash support for other unpaid caregivers, and predictable and flexible scheduling practices, could ensure that Americans—especially those who can’t work from home—can care for the people in their lives,” Murray writes. “Even if that means Americans give a little less of their energy to their employers, the greater investment in the people who make up the nation’s economy is worth it.”⁠ Read more: https://lnkd.in/giWSQAxB (From 2023) ⁠ 🎨: Derek Abella